igniting your shabbat services Vayakhel

Transcription

1 igniting your shabbat services

2 HOW TO USE THIS GUIDE Hello and welcome to Spark! Spark is aimed at facilitating the smooth running of Toddlers Services, Children s Services and Youth Services across United Synagogue communities. Firstly, thank you for offering to run a Children s Service in your local shul. The US is very proud of the numerous Children s services that are run every week across the UK, and we would not be able to do this without you! Spark has been designed in order to help you run your Children s Services. Obviously, every Children s Service is different, in terms of how many children there are; what their age range is; how long it is for; and how knowledgeable the children are likely to be of this week s parasha. Ideally, where possible, a Children s Service should consist of some time used to discuss the weekly parasha, and some time devoted to davening. Spark is aimed at the parasha part of the service. It gives you an overview of what happens in the weekly parasha, and then a song, activity, discussion or Dvar Torah to run with the children depending on their ages. After the parasha summary on the next page, Spark has been split into 5 sections. Larger communities may have 5 different Children s / Youth Services running concurrently. Each of these will be able to use one section for their relevant age group. If your shul does not have as many groups, then you should use the section that best suits the age range of your participants. It has been created in a way to be flexible, so that it can be run in 10 minutes, if you have a short service, or longer if you have the time. If you also look at sections for other age groups, you may even find that you would like to use the ideas and information from more than one of the sections. It is important to note that Spark should help you to run Children s Services, but it does not completely run it for you. It is not designed to give to one of the children to read out to the group for them to run themselves. You are running the Children s Service, and Spark is here to help you do it. Ideally you should read Spark before you start the Children s Service, so that you can think of further ideas to complement it. We hope that you and the children in the Children s Service will benefit from Spark, we thank and congratulate you for doing it; and as always we welcome your feedback. Shabbat shalom, The Tribe Education Team 2

3 Parasha Summary Parasha Summary Usually the parshiot and Pikudei would be read as a double parasha on the same Shabbat. This year however due to the fact that we have a Jewish leap year and Pikudei stand alone. n Moshe gathers all the people together, to tell them some of God s commandments n These include the commandment not to work on Shabbat, and the commandment to construct the Tabernacle n The people brought gifts to contribute to constructing the Mishkan(tabernacle) n The craftsmen were selected and the work begins 3

4 Pre-nursery to Reception Tots In this week s parasha we read about the commandment to keep Shabbat. On Shabbat we are told not to work but instead we have a special day when we rest, spend time with our family and friends, eat delicious food and go to Shul. As we are given the commandment to keep Shabbat in this week s parasha, sing a song about Shabbat or one of the Shabbat zemirot such as Yom Ze L Yisrael or Dror Yikra. Here is a song about Shabbat sung to the tune of Frere Jacques : Shabbat candles Shabbat candles Burning bright Burning bright Challot on the table Challot on the table It s Friday night It s Friday night. 4

5 YEAR 1 & 2 Ages 5-7 In the Parasha this week we are given the commandment to keep Shabbat. Activity: A version of the game I went on holiday and I took with me... Sit in a circle if possible. Choose a child to start the game by saying, I helped prepare for Shabbat and I... The child should then say one job that they did in order to help prepare for Shabbat. Jobs could be: set up the candles, put a tablecloth on the table, buy some flowers, put out the Kiddush cups, baked challot.. The next child in the circle starts the sentence again, repeating what the first child said and adding a job of their own. The third child repeats what child one and two said and adds a job of their own. The game continues going around the circle with the list growing longer and longer. A child is out if they forget an item. Discussion: What is your favourite aspect of Shabbat? 5

6 YEAR 3 & 4 Ages 7-9 In this week s Parasha we learn about the commandment to keep Shabbat. Activity The 39 categories of creative activities melachot - that are forbidden on Shabbat are based on the work done in order to construct the Mishkan. Discuss this with the children and ask if any of them know any of the 39 melachot. Name a few of them such as: ploughing, planting, harvesting, gathering, threshing, winnowing, selecting, grinding, sifting, kneading and baking. These were done in order to grow and process plants needed to make dyes to colour the wool and skins for the Mishkan coverings. Weaving This was done in order to prepare the wool and weave it into curtains for the Mishkan. Writing This was done in order to rebuild the Mishkan properly. Letters were written on to the pillars to identify their position. Letters were often erased and rewritten. Now, split the children into groups and give each group one of the 39 melachot of Shabbat to mime. The children should spend five minutes practising their mime in their groups and then get back together and act out their mimes. The rest of the groups will have to guess what melacha the other group is miming. It is probably best to steer clear of the melacha of carrying in this activity as it is quite complex. You can extend this game by asking each group to also mime how their melacha would be relevant today. For example if a group is given the melacha of kindling a fire they could mime turning on a light switch. (A full list of the 39 Melachot can be found on the internet. There is a wonderful children s book with excellent pictures called The 39 Avoth Melacha of Shabbath by Rabbi Baruch Chait which is very informative. The pictures are quite detailed and not suitable to be held up in front of a group but nevertheless the book would be a good tool.) 6

7 YEAR 5 & 6 Ages 9-11 At the beginning of this week s parasha, Moshe gathers all the Jewish people and tells them to keep Shabbat. On six days a week we can do melacha but the seventh shall be holy. Straight after this the Torah talks about the tasks that were necessary for building the Mishkan. Why does the Torah put these two sections next to each other? The Talmud explains that they are juxtaposed to teach us that the activities used to build the Mishkan are the same ones that are forbidden on Shabbat. Questions to ask the children: n The Torah tells us to rest on Shabbat. How do we define rest? (see above) n Who knows some of the 39 melachot/creative activities that were used to build the Mishkan? n How do they apply to us today? n What is your favourite game? n What rules does your favourite game have? n What would happen if you played the game without the rules? Activity: Spend a few minutes playing a game such as Chinese whispers /charades and slowly but surely take away the rules. The game should become unruly. STOP the game before it gets too out of hand! Discuss: What happened when the rules were taken away from the game? (It wasn t enjoyable any more.) Would it be possible to have Shabbat without the rules? What are the positive rules of Shabbat and which is your favourite one? Do you think technology has helped us observe Shabbat? Do you really rest when you are on social media? 7

8 Youth service Ages 12-18, Chapter 35, Verse 21 says, Every person whose heart inspired him came. This is referring to all those who came to do the weaving, sewing, building and other jobs needed in order to construct the Mishkan. The Jewish people had come from Egypt where they had been slaves for many years. They were only accustomed to manual labour and had no experience in the specialized crafts needed to build the Mishkan. Yet they were inspired and courageous enough to try and do whatever was needed. They took the initiative and knew that God would help them succeed. We all have unique abilities but it is up to us to work out how best to use them. We can learn from the construction of the Mishkan to be courageous, search out our own special talents and use them to do good. Discussion n Can every talent be used positively and negatively? n How can we discover our unique talents? n Do you have a special talent that you can use in a positive manner? n What would stop you using your talent? 8

9 igniting your shabbat services We hope you find our guide to this week s Parsha useful. Be sure to look out for exciting Tribe programmes in your shul. Shabbat Shalom! Sharon Radley at the Tribe Education Team T: E: sharonradley@tribeuk.com Tribe is part of the United Synagogue Registered Charity No